


Storm

by ImpOfPerversity



Series: Devastation-verse [9]
Category: Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-11
Updated: 2004-08-11
Packaged: 2018-10-21 07:00:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10680132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpOfPerversity/pseuds/ImpOfPerversity





	Storm

Jack Sparrow, _Captain_ Jack Sparrow, had been thinking hard of the seabed at the mouth of the Thames, thinking of Foulness Sands and the river-estuaries that fringed the coast to the north -- a hundred tiny villages, all of 'em equally benighted and crammed full of ugly, inbred landsmen, had accreted around the muddy fords and brushwood bridges that crossed those rivers, Roach and Crouch and Blackwater -- and of the skeletal wrecks that snarled fishermen's nets from here to Wells, their wood too ancient and infused with ocean ever to burn, no matter how hot the fire; of the beacon-ships that lay at the river-mouth, marking the channel for His Majesty's Navy and the flaunted wealth (askin' for it, mate) of Europe's richest merchants, carrying Dutch lace, German books, French fashion and Spanish wines to the court in London, parading themselves like scantily-draped females before him, and nothing he could do about it so very close to land, to Forts and Ports abustle with His Majesty's Men; nothing he could do, cramped hands whitening on the wheel, except ride out the storm, keep the _Black Pearl_ 's head pointing south towards the sun -- or where the sun had last, at any rate, been seen -- and the narrow gates of the Channel, and the freedom of oceans uncharted by His Majesty's Mapmakers; nothing he could do except hold on, weather the weather and try very, very hard not to think of his cot, swinging in his warm, dry, dark cabin; his cot, where he'd so often slept the sleep of the damned, or the drunk, or the dead-tired, but where, _at this very moment_ , swung one Jack Shaftoe -- for surely he'd the wit to lie down and sleep while he waited for Jack Sparrow to return -- lying there in Jack's cot, breathing the stench -- no, no, the _scent_ \-- of his body from his bedding and blankets, from the dirty ticking of the mattress and the bold stripes of the wool blanket that Jack Sparrow had bought with his first week's wages from that Muscovy vessel, far up in the Baltic, after nights so bitter that he was sure he'd have died if he'd slept; lately, Jack had made himself a pillow of certain of his softer, older shirts, and no doubt they retained his dreams along with the smell of wet hair; Shaftoe would be lying there in a place so very definitely, definitively Jack Sparrow's that, no matter how intimate they now became (which Jack Sparrow hoped was very intimate indeed) Shaftoe had already crossed the boundary between Jack Sparrow and the outside world; he would smell of Jack himself by the time Jack Sparrow handed over the wheel to his First Mate and made his way below, one hand for himself and t'other for the ship, eyes half-shut against the ferocity of the wind and the rain; at first the sheer blessed dryness of his cabin would be enough for him, but then he'd start to shiver, and -- afraid of spreading the chill to his companion, who'd be snoring as peacefully as a child asleep in a summer meadow -- Jack Sparrow would strip off his sodden coat (hanging it on the back of the latched door), and then his soaking leather boots (propped upside-down, to keep out the rats, next to his sea-chest); next his odorous shirt, his clammy breeches (to the floor with both of 'em), and the linen undergarments he'd taken to wearing in these northern climes (peeled away, wrung small and nudged underneath the chest with one bare foot lest they offend) and then, naked at last, he'd find a cloth and rub himself dry, rub until some warmth returned to his limbs, for it wouldn't be fair to inflict his corpse-cold skin and wrinkled hands upon the warm, dry, comfortable form of Jack Shaftoe -- though, come to think of it, it'd be deliciously warming (like a brazier, but marginally less liable to set the ship ablaze, though Jack couldn't say the same of himself) to have him watch, propped perhaps on one elbow, as Jack Sparrow wrung the water from his hair and briskly towelled his body until his skin looked golden and alive once more, instead of that fortnight-drowned cyanose tinge that seemed to sink beneath his skin on nights like this -- and, once he'd wiped away the worst of the storm and the night and the mad, foam-splattered sea that even now (as he stood, trying to remember where he was and yet forget the sheer discomfort of it) lashed across the deck like a spiteful bully; this was no warm, electric tropical storm, but dark and dirty weather howling down from the coast of Norway and beyond, an icy wind that made the poor _Pearl_ shiver as she fled before it, and curtains of rain that might as well have been sheer sheets of ice, barbed and beneedled the better to flay the skin from Captain Jack Sparrow's face, coming down hard enough to make his head hurt from the constant beating, splattering on the deck like hailstones -- now, see, it _could_ be worse -- and making a racket that underlaid the bellowing wind like drums anchoring the crow of trumpets at some grand parade; somewhere to his left, the moon would be rising now, dragging around all this damned North Sea with her, and she could bloody well haul every damned wave away and pile them all up in an unsought high tide on the coast of Holland, or Batavia, for all Jack Sparrow cared; only let him steer his darling ship through wind and weather and the Straits, white cliffs to either side of her and the wide blue ocean-world ahead, and let the swell mellow as though oil'd been poured onto it, let the moon sidle between the clouds and smile down at Jack, let the wind drop to something sheerly manageable; then Jack'd slip away to his cabin, peel himself out of wet linen and leather and plain cotton, and lay himself down –he'd light a lamp, not to wake Shaftoe but just to see him -- next to Jack Shaftoe, inescapably, inextricably, indubitably near to Jack Shaftoe, pressed hard ( _hard_ ) against the warm dry living skin that wrapped him all about like a secret treasure, breathing the smell of him the way that Shaftoe'd been breathing in Essence of Sparrow, with his face buried in Jack's own bed and his dreams (for all Jack knew) full of Jack's memories; Southwark was still not very far away, but today they'd come far, from Jack Shaftoe's farewell toast to Old England, via the kiss that he'd bestowed like a blessing on Sparrow, and the way he'd followed Jack down to that cabin; even now, with the sea sweeping over the deck, Jack's blood blazed and surged through his veins, better than the rum in the flask he'd left Shaftoe, better than Jamaican sunshine, better than anyone ever before; just the thought of Jack Shaftoe's skin under his cold hands, and Shaftoe's warm, naked body crowded against his in the narrow cot -- the well-oiled chains creaking bass-continuo to their moans -- was enough to make Jack Sparrow burn like a beacon amid the mountainous waves.


End file.
